The Periphery of Awareness
by KusajishiFukutaicho
Summary: "Someday he's going to come home," she insists, "Alex is just lost. He will come looking for me when he finds his way home." Thirteen years after the death of her charge, Jack Starbright tells her story. Not a deathfic. AU after Crocodile Tears. Rewrite for 'Finding The Way Home' and 'Momento Mori'.


**A/N**: Happy New Year to you guys! (_And yes, I have not suddenly gone mad and realized that it is year 2013. In case some people are confusedXD) _In the light of such festivities(I get three days off work! WHEEEEEE!), I decide to follow an old advice. _Don't owe anything over the new year._ Which yeah. Makes sense. So here it is! The something I owe you guys, even if you didn't know about it.

This rewrite is the rewrite for my two old fics, _Finding The Way Home_ and _Momento Mori_.

This rewrite 'thingy' is dedicated to all of my wonderful readers - _yes, that's you! - _for tolerating my mediocre writing and not getting mad at my updating schedule(or the lackthereof).

There are, however, people whom I want to specially mention.

Odd, without whom, I would have just deleted the two oneshots without posting any re-write at all, and Tsuki, who was another of those people encouraging me at the side. Thank you, guys!:333333

**Disclaimer**: This is a work of fiction(_**fan**__fiction, even)_. Any stance against any government bodies or specific groups of people is not representative of the author's viewpoint and simply follows the Alex Rider universe so as to keep all characters and situations IC. Thank you.

_(The less serious version) _I highly doubt that Mr. Horowitz would be as sadistic as I am. Teeheeeeee.

* * *

_The Periphery of Awareness_

* * *

"So your charge-" The journalist consults the thin sheaf of papers in his hands briefly, his eyes scanning across lines of overly-detailed notes by a meticulous hand.

"_-Alex," _The forty-year-old interrupts quickly, annoyance evident.

"Right, _Alex,_" he quickly amends, "Mrs. Hale, you said that Alex went missing that day?"

"That's not what I said," Mrs. Hale snaps, eyes sharp and a flash of annoyance dancing across them.

The journalist attempts a placating smile, but all he manages is a miniscule twist of his lips. His facial muscle has not been quite right ever since the accident, he recalls, and his smile turns apologetic and awkward. He resists a sudden urge to run a hand through his short black hair, and his blue eyes narrow imperceptibly as Mrs. Hale suddenly drops her ire and her eyes dart from side to side nervously. Whatever she's afraid of does not jump out at her, and she settles down, the unease out of place as she scans her surroundings-her very own living room-warily.

"I _said_ that MI6 came and _took_ Alex away. It was another one of their stupid missions that they couldn't bloody do for themselves. They had to employ a fifteen-year-old to do all of their dirty jobs for them. This damn _fucking_ useless government who _**threatens**_ one of their children to go through hell so that they can achieve whatever they need to do, that they need a _child_ to achieve their _higher_ objective!" Mrs. Hale sneers, and her gaze is nothing remotely close to friendly. Smoldering, even – as if she wishes to stand up and strangle the pompous man from across the table that's here to do nothing but bring her misery, asking her all those insensitive questions and raking up painful wounds.

The journalist starts and stamps his paranoia down impatiently - the petite woman cannot even stand up on her own legs, much less reach across to hurt him!

"Mrs. Hale-"

"Now don't you _Mrs. Hale_ me, boy," she snarls, "because if all you're here to do is to write a story to cover up for the British government and all those other governments – damn them to hell – you can take all your damn cameras and papers and shove them up-"

The journalist dutifully shuts out the litany of curses that erupts from the woman's mouth while he glances fleetingly at a footnote he had underlined earlier – _Subject was institutionalized for the better part of five years after the accident for clinical depression. Shows signs of hallucination and uncontrollable mood swings occasionally, especially with respect to topic of her charge, Alex Rider. Refer to point 6.11 for interview with subject's husband, Dr. A. Hale._

"Mrs. Hale," he tries again, voice softening, "I'm only here to write the truth. And I'm here to help you. But I can't make head or tail of what you're saying if you just go on and on. Can you repeat, please? Slower? I'm sorry."

Mrs. Hale eyes him with great dislike, and the journalist can only hope that he had done it right. _Play the concern card,_ the veterans had advised earlier, _you must be the understanding and passionate journalist who wants nothing but to report the truth – what the interviewee believes to be the truth – and believes what they say fully. _

"Call me Jack," she sighs eventually, and though her voice is not exactly cordial, there is something different about the way she's regarding him thoughtfully.

-/\-

_**Thirteen years ago.**_

"_No…"_ Staring wildly at the doctor, Jack repeated, numbly, "No. This can't be true."

"I'm sorry," The doctor's face was professionally sympathetic and he patted the distraught woman gently on a shoulder, "if there's anything I can do to help-"

"I don't want your fucking sympathy. Let me…let me see Alex. Please. This isn't true."

"I'm afraid that you can't, Ms. Starbright. They're…" The doctor darted an uneasy glance at her, "sewing him up now."

"_Sewing?"_ Jack's eyes bulged, "Let me see him!"

"Ms. Starbright…" the doctor's expression turned uncomfortable, "maybe we could arrange for you to see him afterwards?"

"_Why won't you let me see him?" _Jack shrieked and pushed past the young doctor, crashing into the ER in her fury and grief, "_Where are you hiding him?"_

"Jack-" Ben shuffled hesitantly after the redhead, "wait, Jack!"

Tears streaming down her face, she spun around sharply and her hands fisted around the MI6 agent's shirt, _"You need to let me see him, Ben. Tell them to let me see Alex. Please. Please!"_

"Jack…he's gone, Jack." Ben rubbed his face tiredly, "Come on, he wouldn't want to see you like this. Let's go home, alright?"

"_No…! They've staged this entire thing, don't you see? Ben…"_ The strong-willed woman collapsed on one knee and the other followed in seconds as she crashed to the cold linoleum floor, sobbing, _"can you ask them to let me see him, please? I know he isn't dead. He isn't dead, __**right**__? RIGHT?"_

The doctor watched from the side as Agent Daniels wrapped his arms around the grief-stricken woman and slowly helped her to her feet, uttering soft words of comfort and (probably) meaningless words of assurances.

Their eyes met for the briefest instant over the woman's lowered head and Agent Daniels nodded firmly, once. The doctor turned and slunk away.

-/\-

"_**Of course I wanted an open casket! Why should Alex help them cover up their horrible deeds?"**_

-/\-

Jack chanced a glance at the crudely sewn thick and black stitches on Alex's bare scalp and the numerous surgical incisions and she burst into tears. There was a faint hint of bruising under his pale eyelids and his lips were misshapen and his nose crooked.

"_I don't care," _she screamed, "why is it a closed casket? If you have to _plant_ every bloody hair onto his head and do plastic surgery, you are going to do it, hear me? _You_ owe him."

Crawley stared placidly forward and told the undertaker in his usual deadpan voice, "Do what she says. We will pay for it."

Jack staggered away from the body, a hand over her mouth and eyes burning as she tried not to retch. Eyes narrowed in concern, he ran after the receding back and wrapped a soothing arm around the shaking shoulders.

_A bit overboard, don't you think?_ He turned to glare at the casually slouching agent and was rewarded with a rare sardonic smile.

"Jack, maybe you want to move out? You can stay over at my place until…"

"I'm _not_ going to move out," Jack forced out from between gritted teeth, "Alex isn't _dead._ I'm going to sit right there and wait for whatever shit MI6 has landed him in to be over and he can come home."

"Oh Jack…"

"And I'm damn well not going to clear out his room! Because…because, if I do, that would be buying that ridiculous pack of lies."

Ben reached out, wanting to soothe, but Jack slapped his hand away, her tense posture hostile and accusing.

"Don't come near me," she hissed, her gaze flinty and sharp, "you're in with those bastards. You can tell them that they've better stay in whatever hellhole they're in and snivel there forever because _so help me,_ I'll strangle them with my _own_ hands if I see anyone of them near me."

She removed herself from the close proximity while Ben stood there in shock.

"And expect a lawyer's letter from me." Her voice was cold and she stalked away, back straight and stiff.

-/\-

"_**Then of course you knew what happened afterwards. If it wasn't for T-Tony, I'll still be stuck inside t-that horrible place. These legs? I broke them when I was inside and they haven't been the same ever since."**_

-/\-

"_Alex, are you up yet?"_

Jack stopped at the stairs and her exasperated smile was full of fond affection as she tapped against the wooden rails rhythmically.

"_Alex? You're going to be laaaaaate for school!"_

A few moments later, there was finally some reluctant shuffling and a grumpy _"I'm up, I'm up"_ that floated down the stairs. Jack grinned and returned to the kitchen, humming a jaunty tune to herself. Letting out a playful whoop, she swung her frying pan and the pancakes flew into the air and fell back on the flip side.

She had no idea why she was in such good mood today. This was just one of those days where it felt like nothing could turn wrong.

"_Jack!"_

Jack turned, smiling, "Just in time, Alex. Grab some pancakes before you go for school."

But Alex wasn't dressed for school and he didn't even have any books with him. He stood at the foot of the stairs, his brown eyes quiet and serious as he watched his guardian bustle around the kitchen.

"What are you waiting for?" Jack laughed, "Go and grab your stuff! Have you forgotten that there's school today? Why aren't you in school uniform?"

Alex was dressed in a T-shirt that hung off one shoulder loosely and revealed the other. Jack couldn't much discern what bottoms her charge was sporting under that humongous shirt, but she thought that he was probably wearing shorts.

"Alex?" Shaking off a sudden wave of goosebumps, she laid down the pancakes and instead walked towards the silent boy.

Alex walked past her as if he couldn't see her. He eventually came to a stop against a kitchen top and he leaned against the polished wooden surface and slid down slowly as he closed his eyes.

"Alex, are you okay?" Jack's voice was more than a little uncertain and at that moment, all thoughts of school and punctuality flew out of her head.

"Alex…?" More than a little concerned now, she approached the boy and knelt down beside him, feeling his forehead(_no fever_) and shook him by the shoulders.

Alex's eyes snapped open and they stared straight into hers, solemn and gentle.

"There's no school today, Jack." His soft brown eyes were so large and serious that Jack felt a sudden flash of panic and the inexplicable urge to burst into tears.

"Alright alright, so I remembered the wrong date, silly me. Let's get up from the floor, kay? I haven't been cleaning the floor. It's really dus-"

Alex stared at her steadily and shook his head slowly.

"I can't get up, Jack," he sighed.

"It's okay I'll just help you up," Her words stumbled over each other in her haste to get them out as she hooked an arm around her charge's waist and attempted to pull him up.

"You can't."

"W-What are you talking about-of _course_ I can-" Jack sputtered indignantly, "I can _more_ than pull you up, sweetie."

"Jack," Alex said patiently as if he was talking to a child, "You _can't._ Look."

His small hand grabbed hers and Jack hadn't even had the chance to jump at the lack of temperature in the skin on hers before her gaze was directed downwards.

A large amount of redness was diffusing languidly about the chest area of the shirt and when Jack touched the cloth, her hand came away wet. The blood was fresh.

"_Alex!"_ She yelled, horrified and she tried to lay him on his back-because weren't they supposed to get the legs above chest level or something and-

"_No,_ Jack," Alex sounded tired as he raised his face and forced her-with small, chilled hands-to meet his calm gaze, "_**Look.**_"

His fair hair no longer sat on his head in a short fluffy tuff but rested limply against his scalp, wet-dark and longer than before.

There was blood flowing sluggishly from the side of his face.

"_Oh my God-"_

But when Jack looked down once more, there was no gaping wound, just a horrific electric burn in the centre of his chest.

"Alex, _**Alex**_!" Jack yelled in horror, "Alex-"

Alex kept watching her with that woeful expression as he pulled his hands away, his pale face twisting and turning and _melting_ in the heat-

"But you forgot, Jack. You _forgot._"

Her surroundings melted and blurred into a dizzying inferno and Jack sucked in lungfuls of air hungrily while her mind tried to deal with the overload of information.

"_Jack! _Ms. Starbright, please, you have to drink this. It helps."

When the walls around her were no long twisting and turning in an attempt to restructure themselves, they settled into a bleak whiteness that was overly familiar. She came to in her ward in the mental unit of the hospital, all vestiges of exuberance discarded, to be replaced by a bone-aching loss and bitterness.

"_Please, Ms. Starbright, you have to keep it down. You can't keep throwing it up. You need it to maintain your energy. You want to get out, don't you?...__**Jack**__! Ms. Starbright!"_

Jack collapsed and curled into the small corner of her ward and covered her eyes, wishing for nothing but to return to that sweet reality she had dreamed up where she fixed Alex and there were no bogeys wearing Alex's face to taunt her and tell her that it was all _wrong._

-/\-

"Jack," The journalist sighs and offers the helplessly crying woman a tissue, "I'm sorry." When she snatches it over without comment, he turns towards the cameraman and flicks his finger, signaling that the filming is over for the day.

"So now _you-_" Her voice chokes with immeasurable emotion as she grabs his hands earnestly, "you'll help me get him back, won't you? I want to get Alex back. They _stole_ him away. It isn't bloody fair."

The beat of silence draws on and eventually Jack shrinks away, her face haunted and upset. She glances at her surroundings periodically with an undeniable uneasiness and avoids the man's eyes altogether.

The journalist stares at the fidgeting redhead, expression apprehensive and a shiver passes over his spine as he feels a familiar sense of déjà vu. He really doesn't know what to think. The woman's story sounds incredible – like something taken out of a novel. _A teenage spy, really?_ Faked deaths and people forcibly institutionalized because they knew too much.

He can't explain the loopholes in Jack's story as well. But something deep inside him-something instinctual and belonging to _Before Him_-accepts the story without question and urges him to do the same. There is an almost frantic quality to the voice in his heart and the journalist finds that it is terrifying.

"Jack," he finally swallows and tries not to stutter as his heart flutters wildly, "_but_ it's been thirteen years. Wouldn't Alex be an adult by now? He could easily come back and see you if he wished to-hypothetically speaking, of course."

Jack's eyes are old and sorrowful.

"I don't know," she sounds calmer and saner than she ever has been and for a moment, the journalist can visualize a younger Jack, bustling around a spacious kitchen, fixing breakfast for her charge and his best friend who decided to stay over because his parents were-_**wait, best friend?**_

The journalist starts backwards and his legs of his chair scrap across the floor harshly. His head is pounding in familiar fashion typical of an impending seizure and he falls on his rump, breathing heavily.

As if sensing his distress, Jack rushes over, limping and hoisting him up on surprising strong arms for him to sit on a chair nearby.

"Shhhhh, it's alright," Jack wraps her arms around his thin body, making soothing noises as she rubs his back comfortingly, "you've been so strong over the years. It's alright."

Her touch is like magic and the young man feels a touch of embarrassment as his heartbeat slows and he relaxes in this stranger's arms.

When she draws away a moment later, the young man feels a strange sense of displacement and when his colleague pipes up in concern, "Are you okay, Tom?" he jumps.

Jack handles the situation wonderfully.

"Do you have his medicine with him?" Her voice is kind but stern and not a moment later, a glass of water is put to his lips and he swallows obediently and pops the pills into his mouth.

When he finally gathers enough of his wits to remember where he is and that he needs to close the whole session-_great,_ there's going to be a whole maelstrom of whispering and gossiping behind his back waiting for him back at the office again, all about Tom Harris' latest failed interview and his lack of manliness and how unsuitable he is to be a reporter, starting with his delicate constitution-he turns to the redhead and finds her smiling at him softly. It is a wistful and lonely sort of smile, but there is no bite and blame and couldn't be more different than the hostility he witnessed earlier.

"Tom," her eyes are hesitant and she looks as there are a million things at the tip of her tongue, "_thank you_."

-/\-

An hour later, their crew takes a break at a local café before returning to office and Tom sits alone at the side, contemplating.

"_You sure you don't want to join us, pretty boy?"_

_He_ is reasonably **certain** that he doesn't want to sit with a bunch of insufferable and annoying idiots who do nothing but tease him mercilessly about his condition.

Casting his mind a few years back to that depthless black hole that was his memories, Tom concentrates and tries to recall. Anything, if he will, about life before he was sixteen-before the terrible accident which had robbed him of two entire years of his life and the memory of being sixteen altogether. He remembers waking up on white, starched sheets in that blindingly white hospital room and seeing close-up a couple's anxious and concerned faces.

Jerry tells him later that Dad and Mum haven't always been so cordial with each other. But his accident had made the two put their differences aside to take care of him. In a way, their marriage benefited from his horrific accident, one could put it that way.

Jerry also repeats what the doctors tell him. They can't stress how lucky Tom had been, that _all_ he had lost was sixteen years of memories and feeling like a newborn babe again. He could have been paralysed or a vegetable or just _died._

Tom supposes that he should thank his lucky stars that somehow he hadn't lost any of his muscle memory and for some strange reason, he could still read and write and interact with others, even if he didn't remember his own name.

"Can I sit down here?" A mild voice breaks Tom out of his increasingly angry and bitter thoughts and he blinks at the vaguely handsome blond man standing before him.

"Uhh, sure." He quickly rearranges his messy papers to occupy less space.

"Bright day today, isn't it?" The man sits down, smiling at him as he set his drink down.

"Huh-y-yes, it is." Even after five years as a reporter, Tom realizes that he still doesn't have the talent for small talk and as always, it only serves to make him distinctly uncomfortable. There is nothing to fill the sudden silence that has fallen across them.

"I was thinking of visiting an old friend, but it seems that she had guests today." The man's eyes meets his for the briefest instant, something foreign in those brown depths before it settles on faint regret. Tom only shifts awkwardly.

He tries to muster a smile for the friendly man, but as it has always been since he has had massive reconstructive surgery, his facial muscles don't twitch. Much. The fair-haired man doesn't seem to mind and his eyes don't linger on Tom's face for too long.

"You're a reporter?" The man's tone is politely curious, and Tom attempts to return the favour, hastily tidying his papers, "Yeah."

"Must be pretty exciting," the man remarks lightly.

"Nah, it's just regular stuff." Tom doesn't mean for it to come out as dismissive as it did.

The man nods and turns his attention back to his drink.

"I've always wanted to be a war reporter," Tom blurts out to fill the weird emptiness that has begun to swirl sickeningly in his stomach.

The man's brown eyes widen and Tom notes distractedly that they're warm and there is a depthless quality to those dark irises.

"But there are a lot of requirements for a war reporter and I-I-_you know…_"

The man leans forward and Tom is momentarily distracted from his dejection as he catches sight of a ghastly scar* on the man's neck. There are surgical scars all around that white tissue marring the smooth, pale skin of the man's neck and Tom inhales sharply.

The man's eyes narrow and all of a sudden he seems closed and unapproachable and Tom curses inwardly at his tactlessness.

"Erm, anyway, I don't know why, but ever since I could remember, I've always felt this strong sense of justice and that I had to report the truth. All these people deserve nothing but the truth," he rubs at his head sheepishly at the raised fair eyebrow, "so that's why I became a reporter, I guess."

"You would," The man murmurs, eyes shining with mirth.

They sit there in companionable quietude as the man finishes his drink and Tom peers at the interview transcript distractedly. Eventually the man stands up and Tom looks up at that boyish face, mind strangely blank. A brief nod of acknowledgement is all he gets and the man is on his way.

And all of sudden Tom is on his feet, attempting to swallow past the strange lump in his throat-something that feels suspiciously like grief and longing. _Huh,_ he thinks faintly. Catching sight of that familiar-_familiar?-_outline of that purposefully upright back, he pants heavily and tries to give chase.

"Wait-" The man half-turns, and the sunlight dancing across his pale face shifts into surprise and something Tom cannot identify. When he brashly grabs the slim shoulder, the man flinches. His eyes are lofty, smile empty and somewhat whimsical as he shrugs off Tom's hand and melts into the London crowd.

Eventually Tom makes his way back slowly and stares forlornly at the empty table.

* * *

_**Finito.**_

* * *

*This is explained in another story, _'White Lies'_. That is a re-write like this one, and they're from the same 'verse.

**A/N**: *shifts from foot to foot nervously* So. I haven't written for this fandom for quite a long time. And this is obviously a strange new(_new?)_ style I was trying(not what I would usually write)…so…erm…review, please? Liked it or hated it? _Pleeeeease? _

If you'd like to know more of when my other updates are coming and what's happening with other stories like _White Lies_, please check my profile. I've posted my new schedule(_I sat down and seriously thought about it, I swear!)_ there and stuff.


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